Extracción de aceite de canola utilizando un solvente "verde"

Abstract

The oil extraction process from oilseeds is carried out by pressing and / or solid-liquid extraction, where the solvent most used in the industry is hexane, this solvent derived from petroleum is highly flammable, harmful to health and environmental contaminant. Ethanol is a "green" solvents that has begun to be studied as an alternative solvent in the extraction of oil because it has a low cost, can be produced by fermentation from different biological materials using simple technology and does not produce pollution to the environment. In this work the ethanol extraction yield of canola oil was determined in a stirred batch system at 60 ° C and two extraction times (1 and 4 hours) obtaining 77% of the total oil at extraction time, being significantly greater than the yield obtained with hexane at the same time and not significantly different from the yield obtained at infinite time with ethanol. In turn, the yield found was similar to that recorded in literature for different matrices (soybean, maize, rice bran). The results show the feasibility of the use of ethanol as a solvent for the production of canola oil and the potential to scale the process at the industrial level.